Month: November 2018

Moving

I’ll pack the bulk of it, and then do the million-gillion trips to the car and house, if you do the packing off all the miscellaneous items…

My brain just can’t handle it… simultaneously packing the last things in a hurry and arranging them in the most efficient positions… it just makes me go nuts whenever I have to do it, and I almost always take longer doing that than I spent on all the rest of the packing combined… packing the miscellaneous is just too stressy on my brain, because the logic of hurry does not win over the logic of pack efficiently.

It just doesn’t in my head. 😛

Suffice it to say that I am utterly drained, but still surviving due to the help offered by two glorious friends tonight from about nine to eleven… they were a Godsend, no doubt, and I would have suffered intensely in the head and body without them.

Still more to do to finish everything up, but those are just baby touches compared to what we accomplished tonight.

I thank you all, who blessed me today 🙂

Post-a-day 2018

Towels and Conversations

In my first year of college, whenever I’d have an evening shower, I usually would end up down the hall afterward.  The social and clearly labeled “extrovert” end of the hall was always booming when the girls were in, and I always would go down to check in when I heard the chatter.  (I had been assigned the introvert end of the hallway, and, somewhat ironically, I was the only one in the hallway who knew everyone else.  I just like to get to know the people around me, and so college was no exception to that.)  This meant that, come evening time on weekdays, I would spend some portion of the time down the hall, socializing, so to speak.

And, as mentioned, this included the time immediately following my evening showers.  And so, I would be hanging out down the hall, hair wrapped in one towel and body in another, both holding tightly, as though sewn into place.  Totally normal for me.

One night, one of the most outgoing girls asked me about how on Earth I can be so comfortable in just a towel… Wasn’t I worried it would fall off?… Or that I was naked underneath???  No, not at all, I told her.  And I explained why I wasn’t.  First, we were all girls, so I saw no issue anyway (though I had no intention of anyone seeing anything under the towel).  Secondly, I grew up with older sisters who had seemed to spend a third of their time at home (when in college) walking around in a towel or two, and so it was very normal for me.  And, from a very young age, I had learned their tricks of how to make the towel stay in place, and, naturally, I had mastered it by college.  So, it never seemed dangerous for me to be hanging out down the hall  – this was after the curfew when boys had already been kicked out, mind you – in a towel.  It was like hanging out in almost any other clothing.

She had trouble believing that the towel was stuck, and so I even did a little shaking around to show how it wouldn’t fall off.  Nevertheless, she still was terrified of ever doing such a thing herself, and I was amazed that this towel tying trick wasn’t common knowledge or part of common use.  I think I even showed them right then and there how I tied the towel (without opening it, of course).  These were the girls who talked about just about everything with one another, quite openly, and yet they were somehow terrified at the thought of showing their bodies to one another.  I still have a certain shyness about my body, but, in certain contexts, it’s very so what to me.  Like in onsen, the Japanese hot baths, it is absolutely no big deal to show my body and to see other women’s bodies.  And in theatre, for costume changes, it happens sometimes… oh, well… it’s no issue.  It just happens.

To this day – last time was Friday evening – I still walk around in my towel and chat comfortably with people after I shower.  My high school ‘big sister’ was known for always saying, in response to a compliment about her clothing, “I’m naked under this.”  The initial shock always wore away when, after a few moments of consideration, the listener realized that we all were naked underneath whatever outfit we were wearing – that’s kind of how it works when you put something on in the first place.  For me, there is little difference between clothing and a towel.  Plenty of people regularly don’t wear underwear, and men don’t wear bras, so we’re just as naked under a towel as we are under most clothing.  (It’s just what in our minds that messes with us and makes us uncomfortable.)  That’s why, even when I’d shower in college, and a guy would be in the hallway when I was heading back to my room in just a towel, I was unconcerned.  I’d even talk with them, if I knew them.  It seems that, if they were concerned about talking with me, they could always excuse themselves and leave.  That’s what my friends and I would do if we had an issue with a guy in only a towel.  (But that really isn’t much of an issue to me, mostly too due to my upbringing with older siblings.)

(I somehow feel harsh or demanding with all of that…, but I didn’t mean to be; not in the least.  People can always do as they prefer – I’m just sharing why I am so comfortable in such a silly situation, and why I see it a totally normal, despite its being totally awkward for plenty of people.  I mean, my ukulele teacher is someone I met when we both were bathing in an onsen, naked, of course.) 😛

Post-a-day 2018

Musicals

“Prince Siddhartha: The Musical”

Go see it – it’s wonderful.

It kind of felt like someone did what the makers of “Urinetown” did, how they took famous bits of other shows and included them in “Urinetown” (e.g. the “Evita” portrait in the mob, or the waving of the flag from “Les Misérables”), but just taking songs from famous musicals…. not that they stole anything – just that they were inspired strongly by those famous songs, especially in terms of the orchestra’s role and notes.

Nonetheless, it was a nice musical, and I kind of want the soundtrack now, so I can sing all the songs. 🙂

Post-a-day 2018

Moving

I am moving again, and I have even less of an official deadline this time as I did last time… and that’s making it difficult to pack up and actually move.

I’m also ever so slightly terrified at living all alone (mostly because of the neighborhood, and the fact that, on the odd occasion, something goes wrong in it, but also a bit because I like the feeling of someone being in the house with me, and knowing that we can help to take care of one another).

But I deep cleaned the carpet today, and so can move in furniture Monday (Ah! So soon!), and even some more boxes tomorrow (to the wooden floors part).

I guess I am scared…, and I’m doing it anyway, because this is my next step forward on this path I’m pursuing… and I’m delighted about that.

Post-a-day 2018

Writing

Do you ever just not feel like doing something you love?  Like tonight, how I just so totally don’t feel like writing anything, even though I actually love writing.  Yet, I write anyway, because I want to maintain the habit of writing, even and especially when I’m not feeling it or feel as though I have nothing valuable to write.  Otherwise, I could see myself going right back to how I first started writing, but then only wrote around once a month, because I didn’t feel like I had something valuable enough to write about.  Virginia Woolf mentioned in her (ridiculously long) essay called “A Room of One’s Own”, how it is important for women – the whole thing was about women – to write, no matter what they have to write about, because they are able to express their genius and artistry by writing.  And so, even if the writing is only valued for a day or for a year, it is still important to write it, she said.*

I have much to do over these next handful of days, and I would like to accomplish it all (and well), because I quite possibly will have more added on at the end of them, which is just a bit absurd when being added to what I already have to accomplish by a few weeks from now.  P-hsh—— (That was like a sigh, but with my teeth closed.)  Just like Fuji-san, it’s bothersome to do, but I know I can do this, and that’s exactly why I don’t want to do it.  😛

*Fun fact: I used the word ‘said’, and it is actually correct, because the essay was published out of two speeches Virginia Would gave to Cambridge women’s colleges around 1928 and 1929.  (One of those was Newnham College, which is where my best friend studied and where I visited and stayed briefly!)  So, she really did say the information, even though she also wrote it.

Post-a-day 2018

Cold…

It’s cold enough and I’m tired enough that I can’t seem to think about almost anything…  My eyes merely continue to close for increasingly long periods of time at every blink, and my mind keeps wondering why the air hasn’t turned on yet, since the temperature in here is well below the setting on the thermostat…  I guess we are kind of wimps here in Houston, when it comes to cold weather.  Yesterday and today actually did have cold weather.  It was in the single digits of Celsius (I totally don’t know cold weather in Fahrenheit, because I’ve never lived anywhere that uses Fahrenheit and that has consistent cold weather.), and the high was around 15 or 16 Celsius (16 is 61 in Fahrenheit – I know that conversion!).  However, our bodies still don’t take it well, especially when it actually is reasonably cold weather like yesterday.  I’ve already got a cold going from our sudden drop the other night (combined with my minimal sleep this week, of course), and I’m sitting under my sheets right now, shivering at the coldness of the room (it reads 69), wondering if I’ll be able to sleep if the heat doesn’t come on.  I only really set it to 71 or 72 right now, because it isn’t that cold outside.  But it’s set higher right now, just to test the system.  Sadly, as you can tell, the system is failing me right now.  And I’m really tired and want to sleep, but I already know that I will struggle with that, because my exposed skin – aka my face – will be so cold.

Oh, well… here’s to hoping for happy, warm, cozy rest tonight, and cool, crisp weather tomorrow (followed by a spectacular, long night tomorrow night, complete with sleeping in Saturday morning)!

Post-a-day 2018

Getting ready for bed

And suddenly, a smoke detector sounds upstairs…. Oh, no… her casserole for work tomorrow – casseroleS, actually – is burning… she’s not going to be happy about that… And then another smoke detector sounds in the living room… and then at the top to the stairs… and then right outside my door… all within ten seconds of the first one sounding.

Ugh… okay, guess I’m helping out on this one.  I grab a sweatshirt top by my door and head into the hall, waving it at the smoke detector as I open the front door, allowing the cool, clear air to swoosh into the house that suddenly smells very strongly of corn casserole.  She is yelling something upstairs.  What was that?  ‘Something’s burning,’?  Well, yeah, that makes sense – the smoke detectors are all going off… and you’re baking something… did you forget about that?  Man, she really IS tired… As I fan the smoke detector with my top, I swing the front door back and forth a bit to encourage the air flow to move the “smokey” air away from the smoke detector – fyi, there’s no visible smoke to be found down here.  I hear here shouting something about not being able to get something open.  The oven?  A window, possibly… probably…  Suddenly, I mentally halt: I was about to go shower, when the alarms started going off, so I’m standing here in a tank top (no bra) and underwear, for any passers-by to see.  ðŸ˜›

I continue my fanning, but now laughing along with my fanning.

When the alarms finally quit, – suddenly and all together – I head upstairs to see what’s going on.  And then I realize that she was shouting at the smoke detectors before, telling them that there’s no smoke anywhere (as opposed to telling me that something was burning).  That makes much more sense.  It’s also ironically funny.  No smoke to be found, but the whole neighborhood could think that something’s about to burn down, from the sound.

Post-a-day 2018

Today

Things about today:

  1. I finished another Malcolm Gladwell book, Outliers, and, naturally, feel like a total genius, totally inspired (as is the usual with his books).
  2. I cried multiple times and about various things, and I was okay with that.
  3. Someone told me that a someone is coming for me, sometime soon, within the next few years, and that that someone will love and respect and appreciate and value the beauty of a human being that I am and will show it in a way that I actually get to experience my immense value and beauty in the world.
  4. I want to believe him, and not other people, who say that perhaps I’ll never have a someone like that in my life (not in a negative way, but just a ‘there isn’t somebody for everybody, and you might be one of those everybodys with no somebody’ way).
  5. I was reminded that I desperately love languages, as well as teaching.
  6. I remembered, too, that I want to do more in my daily than just teach school classes.
  7. I wrote out all of this, before meditating/praying/playing music, and then going to sleep.

Post-a-day 2018

What(-anabe)?!

And, yet again, 渡辺 謙 Ken Watanabe has shown up in my life.

I was visiting a friend in her classroom today at lunchtime, and some kids needed instruction and practice on how to do quick-changes for a theatre contest this weekend.  (We won’t discuss how they’re only just learning this skill, despite their not being new to theatre and despite their being enrolled in that particular contest [of many contests] over the weekend.)  I happen to have a rather strong background in the workings of theatre, and so I took over helping them, while my friend worked with other kids on tying knots (No idea, but maybe it connects with lighting in theatre?)

Anyway, as we were about to do a practice run-through of the quick-change I’d set up, using clothing items I’d found around the classroom, one of the kids with me asked, – and somewhat snarkily (though not rudely) I might add – ‘Are there even any shows that actually need this?’ I responded with an immediate affirmative, to which he queried, ‘Like what??’
Again, immediately, and out of seemingly nowhere in my brain stores, I said, “‘The King and I’… Yes.., Yes! ‘The King and I’!”
Somewhat chastened, though still quite happy, he said an, ‘O-kay…’
I had surprised even myself with my immediate response, and wasn’t entirely sure of how I’d found the video of that memory so quickly.  “There’s actually this really great video,” I said, “of a somewhat famous quick-change from it.  I’ll pull it up in just a minute, so you can watch it.  It’s actually really cool.”

And so, I pulled up the video and played it, admiring the quick-change and the whole concept of Broadway and fabulous singing voices and all that jazz, and explaining to the students what was happening and why.  Then, we resumed our practicing.  The video, however, continued on to another video, as YouTube’s auto-play feature does.  It was the same quick-change again, causing us to look briefly at it once more, but with the scenes before and after it included.  I happened to glance up after the quick change finished, and what did I see?

You guessed it: The leading lady dancing in the arms of 渡辺 謙 Ken Watanabe.

And I was blown away doubly.  Because, despite the fact that I was remembering this quick-change video from “The King and I” at (I think) the Tony Awards, I had not made the connection from having read 渡辺 謙 Ken Watanabe’s Internet info pages the other night that his being the lead in “The King and I” several years ago was the same production.  I’d even told my mom just this weekend about his having been in it, and we talked about it briefly.

But the two pieces of information were stored in such separate cabinets and files that they hadn’t linked up yet in my head.  Until, of course, I saw the video with him in it, and it all clicked.  And then I was actually jumping up and down, declaring that it was ‘渡辺 謙 Ken Watanabe, it’s 渡辺 謙 Ken Watanabe!’

Boy, I’d really like to interview him.

I wonder how he’ll pop up next into my life.  I can hardly wait to find out. 😀

Post-a-day 2018

School… really?

I share tonight the end of an e-mail I sent this evening, because it seems to encompass all my current thoughts.

Hope you have a great week!  I’m struggling to write a long paper I don’t want to write for school, so I’ll go back to that now… it seems so far that 2/3 of my degree is on stuff I genuinely don’t care about and sometimes even dislike. :/

Peace
Hannah
Sent from my iPhone

I wanted something to do, and it seems I’ve gotten it.  I just wish I’d come up with something a little more to my liking for the long reports and papers, you know?  Oh, well… only two more semesters of the not-fun stuff, and then I get to the fun stuff (Woohoo!).

Post-a-day 2018